The present invention relates to an emptying unit for recovering bottom residue, particularly in drying filters, drying units, and the like.
It is known that the drying filters and drying units used in many industrial fields generally comprise a vessel or container that is constituted by a hood-like body which is closed, in a lower region, by a bottom that is monolithic with said body or is hermetically coupled thereto and above which the separator filter may optionally be provided.
Inside the container there is usually an agitator, which after filtration and drying has ended allows the outward expulsion of the product by means of a hatch that generally opens at the lower lateral or bottom part.
To prevent the agitator from damaging the filtering element or by scraping the bottom, from introducing possible contaminant particles in the dried product, the agitator must strictly remain spaced from the filter and from the bottom; accordingly, with currently known solutions a bottom residue remains inside the container.
This bottom residue must be recovered for various reasons; to avoid insufficient separation of batches of two different qualities from a product treatment, the product obtained by a previous process must be fully removed and the apparatus must be cleaned correctly in order to remove the dried product entirely.
Another reason for which it is necessary to remove the so-called bottom residue is that the residue, which very often has a high economic value, can be spoiled by the subsequent batch being processed, with an evident economical loss.
Currently, to perform recovery it is necessary to take particular precautions, such as the use of glove boxes or other systems that require protection for the operator, for the environment and for the product and always have very high costs and considerable dimensions.